


the rambler

by rhythmofyourheart



Category: The Walking Dead
Genre: F/M, Songfic, This Is Sad, the rambler - black stone cherry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 11:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19789618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhythmofyourheart/pseuds/rhythmofyourheart
Summary: it's been 14 years since rick dissappeared, and a figure has been spotted on the roads - old and withered. a 17 year old Judith finds a old cd  in an envelope left at the gate and a listen to a track on it, and many letters from her father and brother. But instead, she finds something she's been searching for her whole childhood.





	the rambler

there is little s8 or s9 spoilers as there is no mention of spoilers beyond Carl and rick.

Note: this is an AU where Negan surrendered earlier, but is under "supervision" and allowed to be outside. Based off the flash forward from 7x01. Yes, Michonne has left before this story's present takes place.

Lyrics are from the song The Rambler by Black Stone Cherry, which this oneshot is based on.

MENTIONED:  
RickxLori  
RickxJessie  
RickxMichonne (main ship).

Yes, I am using the comics and the show as the reason why for Rick, but this is mainly based off the show.

\--  
_You were born in a southern fall_  
_It might had been Sunday but I can't recall  
The birthdays I must have missed, your first steps and your first kiss_

He kept going. He kept going and going, having watched the bridge explode 14 years ago. He hobbled along, watching them leave, and tears hurt to his eyes. He hated this. He hated having to leave them behind, but he had other obligations elsewhere.

It had been 14 years and the former sheriff's deputy had roamed the landscape alone, finding communities and making some great. But he needed to return to the safe zone, he needed to get back to them and reveal his life to them.

_I don't even know if you know my name but you should hear the truth before it's too late_  
_I hope this finds you on some highway  
Cause I'm an old time rambler, I call the road my home 🎶_

The withered man kept going, leaning on the wooden staff carved by a kind member of the community he went to. He wanted to continue his Survivors mission.

He found it - hidden in a old record store and decided it was time to tell the story. He took the stack of letters from his side bag, and then the old CD. He knew at the last time he was there, Alexandria Safe Zone had some electricity.

 _I call the road my home_  
_forgive my indiscretion, it's the only way I know_  
_a million miles from Kentucky but I will always be around  
so turn the radio up when your heart breaks down_

  
He missed Michonne and Judith. He didn't know what to think, what to say about any of this because he approached the gates.

He thought back to every time he had with everyone he loved, and he wanted to die here. He had been bitten - the cursed foe of the strong, it was unexpected as he was much older and less agile. He knew his time had come.

 _I played for tips and I played for less_  
_I played a pretty southern girl right out of her dress_  
_she danced until the lights came on  
but there's a reason she's here instead of being at home_

  
He remembered when he met Lori - it was at some high school party. He remembered what he said to her, he remembered every word he said. It was all part of the life, that he had. And he remembered the song she had shown him - the one that reminded her of him.

  
_she said the songs you sang made the whole room cry_  
_and that night I told a young man's lie_  
_when I said I would call her  
and I said I'd write_

He then remembered Jessie, who had a old radio in her house in Alexandria. He remembered how easily that things happened, how easily that things ended. He wished he hadn't of told her he'd keep her safe, as she'd died in that herd.

 _Cuz I'm an old time rambler, I call the road my home_  
_forgive my indiscretion, it's the only way I know_  
_a million miles from Kentucky but I will always be around  
so turn the radio up when your heart breaks down, turn the radio up when your heart breaks down_

He just tried to keep the pain from getting to him as he thought of Judith - finding those letters and that CD. He could bet she looked like Lori - even more than anything. Even though her eyes were as blue as his, and her hair was just as dark.

\--3rd person POV will now be both Judith and Rick--

 _I'm sorry for the tears I made you cry_  
_I'm sorry for the promises that turned to lies_  
_if I could turn back the hands of time_  
_I'd take you back and try try try  
_ _to make you understand, that this is who I am_

It was all obvious to Judith as she got older, that something wasn't right about her dad's death. She had been out, exploring the desolated for supplies as she came back, getting down from the horse when she noticed the bundle on the side of the road, close to the gate.

She had tears in her eyes when she picked up the stacked bundle of letters, the 17 year old having tears in her eyes. Was this a sign of her Daddy, the man she'd known as a toddler, being around somehow?

"Judith?" She heard it, the familiar drawl. She turned on her bootheel, to see her father, the (in)famous Rick Grimes, standing there.

"Dad..." She sniffles, tears welling in her blue eyes as the former's sherrifs deputy looks her over. This is definitely Judith... a almagamation of her birth mother, her real mother Michonne in the swords on her back, and the boots on her feet were old and weathered from wear, but they'd long ago belonged to...

 _I_ _met a devil in an old motel_  
_it seems I ain't got much of a soul to sell_  
_my glass is empty_  
my hands are blue  
and the doctor gave me about a month or two  
well I thought I would make it to you this year  
so forgive me one last time my dear  
and tell your mother  
I won't be coming home

He just rushed to her, but collapsed almost at the moment he went to hug her, noticing a 14 year old run out from the safe zone to investigate. He didn't recognize him, but he could feel a familiar warmth...

"RJ, its fine." Judith spoke up, looking to her baby brother. She just wanted him to be here. "Don't worry about it, little brother."

Rick then realized who "RJ" was, and was just downright shocked.... he hadn't known at the time of his disappearance, after what happened with the bridge. But he hoped to see /her/ too, his Michonne..

"This is dad.." He heard the boy speak up, and he just looked up knowingly. He knew he'd make it back someday.

"I won't be coming inside." He spoke through choked tears, lifting his shirt. On the same side the rebar struck him, he'd been bit a day ago. He was doomed for the dead life, doomed to be a corpse soon. It had taken longer for him, but he knew his end was coming...

_Cuz I'm an old time rambler_  
_I call the road my home_  
_forgive my indiscretion_  
_it's the only way I know_  
_a million miles from Kentucky_  
_but I will always be around_  
_so turn the radio up when your heart breaks down_  
_turn the radio up when your heart breaks down_

A single shot was heard from a colt python the same night, as Judith had to sadly put him down. She stood there, reading each letter and making sure his words were known as he spoke them as he "went over to the walkers".

||this is a combination of ALL of Rick's speeches including the comics one, which is spoken by Judith.||

"Everyone who's alive right now, everyone who's made it this far, we've all done the worst kinds of things just to stay alive. But we can still come back. We're not too far gone. We get to come back. I know we all can change....  
They always will — the dead and the living — because we're in here. The ones out there, they'll hunt us, they'll find us, they'll try to use us, they'll try to kill us, and we'll kill them. We'll survive, I'll show you how. I was thinking, I was thinking how many of you do I have to kill to save your life? But I'm not going to do that. You're gonna change. I'm not sorry for what I said last night. I'm sorry for not saying it sooner. You're not ready. But you have to be, right now you have to be. Luck runs out...This was the place we , not just where we holed up, we fortified , hunkered down, pulled ourselves together, and built a life for each other. I know it's out there; we just had to find it... Every day he woke up, told himself 'rest in peace, now get up and go to war.' Then after a few years of pretending he was dead, he made it out alive. That's the trick of it, I think. Do what we need to do, and then we get to live . . . This is how we survive: we tell ourselves, 'We are the walking dead.My mercy... prevails... over my wrath." I don't want to wait for it anymore. You don't either... Yeah, I know. So we don't have to wait for it. If we start tomorrow right now... with everything we've beaten, everything we've endured, everything we've risen above, everything we've become... If we start tomorrow right now... no matter what comes next... we've won. We've already won...." Rick had spoken as his last words, and she knew her dad was gone the moment he ended and closed his eyes.

Judith's eyes watered at the repeating of some of what she had read, to hear those words from her father, words that had been spoken throughout many trials, many wars. And to think, he died as he was - a rambler, a speaker of words.

"H..He left me with this to tell, in the final letter he wrote.." Judith spoke to the crowd, looking as she swallowed back tears. Both her parents were /gone/, her older brother Carl was gone, and yet she could look at RJ and know Hope resided there in her brother. Just like her father had looked at her as a child, seeing hope for the better world, for the rebuilding.

  
"....This world has scarred us, mentally and physically. We carry those scars with us--each and every day. They serve as a reminder of what we've lived through--what others have done to us to survive... sacrifices made... all to get us here. To this point. To have so many of us here. To be safe. To be so close to the way things were before. I used to think we had to put our humanity on hold... embrace a savageness in order to survive... because our world, the one we knew, was never coming back. I was wrong. We are on the road back, I can see our future ahead of us, and it is bright. We no longer live surrounded by the dead. We're not among them--not living on borrowed time... We do not live minute to minute, in minutes stolen from us by the dead. We can be happy... we can be content... we can have peace. We can live again. WE ARE NOT THE WALKING DEAD! At least we don't have to be. Not anymore. I think of this world as a gift... even after all the pain it's caused me. It's a chance to rebuild things... better than they were before. We haven't worked as hard as we have just to bring back old, flawed, unfair systems. We deserve a better world. A world we will appreciate... because of what we've just lived through. We should have an elevated sense of respect for each other... because we know what we've all lived through. We are not the walking dead." Judith spoke, looking at the crowd as tears fell from her eyes, and she stared away from them all, looking towards one of the people that had been there for her. That had been at the bedside where her father died, and the man just looked back towards her with a smirk, the leather jacket he wore familiar, marking him as who he was.

The old time rambler, had returned home, and to end his ramble as the living, and to not ramble on as the dead.


End file.
